Ten Pin Alley 2 (guest review)

One of the reasons I was so excited to get a Wii was for the sports games, especially the ones that I could play with friends and family. I like the ones where there’s very little learning curve, and Wii Sports fit the bill. However, I quickly discovered that I enjoyed venturing outside the tennis courts and into the bowling alley or golf course.

So it seemed Ten Pin Alley 2 should be an ideal fit. It’s in the ballpark, but it’s also not exactly what I had hoped for entirely, either.

The solo and multiplayer games were what I was most anticipating. However, they were a letdown. The gameplay is nearly identical to Wii Sports, which was good and bad. The positive definitely came with the very small learning curve. However, I was hoping Tin Pin Alley 2 was going to change it up, even just a little. I found almost none of that, though.
Some of the features I did enjoy were the options to change the bowling alley and the avatars. The game provided six different lanes to play on. I found most of them to be enjoyable to look at. Of the six, I found myself returning to the Studio 45. It looked like it was straight out of Saturday Night Fever. Very cool.

The avatars, however, didn’t do much for me. Players could choose from nine different characters, none of which I really found myself really wanting to play as over and over. All could be personalized. There were only two choices for an outfit — the same style, only in different colors. On the flip side, there were several different bowling balls to choose from. They ran the gamut from simple colors to ones with special effects, such as a black 8-ball. Some even had sparkles and abilities that need to be unlocked.

The best — and most surprisingly fun — part of the game was the trick shot feature. Each of the six lanes offered 10 different shots to be completed. A player must knock down a certain number of pins — seldomly 10, usually five or less — with some sort of device to help or hinder the shot or both. It’s like a puzzle and I often tried repeatedly to solve it.

The first few trick shots were easy and got more difficult the closer a player got to No. 10. If a player beats a trick shot in one or two rolls, a trophy is awarded.

I found that when I got bored with the lane bowling, I skipped over to this feature and usually played much longer.

In all, it’s certainly a diverting game. But I don’t think it’s the first one I’ll suggest at my next party.